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Headvoid comments on the Christmas TV adverts 2013

and here we go, the annual excuse to show women in knickers because it is "arty"

The M&S advert has almost more heritage than the John Lewis advert. We went from food porn to Twiggy and friends to now some sort of fairy tale. Clothes fall off the model 14 seconds into a 2.30 min advert so they know the "dad" audience quite well. I will talk you through how I think this went.

Agency Pitch - MIX FAIRYTALE WITH GERMAN GOTHIC CINEMATOGRAPHY AND ALSO SQUEEZE IN SOME PAPIER MACHE AND THAT THING WHERE THERE ARE SHADOWS (is it Nosferatu?) OH AND ALSO THE PORTRAITS FROM HARRY POTTER AND THE CLOUD STUFF FROM THE JAPANESE MONKEY SHOW AND YELLOW BRICK ROAD AND ALSO EVERY HUGH GRANT CHRISTMAS FILM AND ALSO:

HELENA FUCKIN BONHAM FUCKIN CARTER

Client (In the voice of Mr Creosote from Monty Python)
I'll have the fuckin lot, but make sure you put some FUCKIN PRODUCTS IN YOU WANKY ADVERTISING BASTARDS.

Agency (In the voice of Smithers)
Absolutely sir, absolutely!
(*they hate the client and will slowly reduce the amount of products in edit by claiming they need to tell a story)
[youtube]O7Xw1IL3oh0[/youtube]
 
OH MY GOD - This is just the most hilarious fuck up I can imagine.

This advert has broken advertising rules (while remaining almost formulaic in format)
(Only tell the truth - the farmer is a fuckin actor)
The advert has broken society rules (while still being a little dull)
(Never show the fuckin meat alive!)
The advert has broken social rules
(Bloke, alone, at Christmas - dear god that's my worst fear)

So, here we see some lovely cute Turkeys, as they begin their journey towards our slavering mouths. Here they are, the cute little buggers running around. Here we are showing our ethical sourcing, our organic credentials, our lovely approach to farming.

What we are actually showing is a massive amount of walking dead. Great herds for our carnivorous pleasure. Need a reminder of how much food is wasted at Christmas? Well here you go. We can show chocolate puddings (a la M&S from 2009) but we NEVER SHOW THE FUCKING MEAT ALIVE.

Then the actor settles into a chair, by himself after shipping off the walking dead to the abattoir, happy in the knowledge that he has provided for the world and now the BUTCHER OF SHROPSHIRE can settle back and count his blood money. Do they show a dead bird at the end? YOU BETCHA! Here it is, a fucking corpse provided for your pleasure.

HAPPY CHRISTMAS YOU FUCKIN BEASTS (from an actor in his land rover who couldn't give a shit)

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This is truly great stuff.

Is that Rosie Cuntington-Shiteley* in the M&S ad? Her acting has actually improved since Transformers 3, at least. Poor Helena Bonham Carter having to play second fiddle, though I suppose it's better than doing another fucking Tim Burton movie.

*I have absolutely nothing against Rose Huntington-Whiteley, it's just that her name is so easy to transform (lol) into two swear words that I literally can't resist. I'm sure she's a nice person.
 
It's the first time I've seen most of these since I don't watch TV.

At first the Waitrose one seemed ok, but gradually I realised they weren't going to stop showing adorable turkeys running around, and my mind began to scream out "where are his family?! Oh that poor soul he's all alone at Christmas!! He's cooked an adorable turkey just for himself! What's gone wrong in his life?!"

The Tesco one sounds like a good idea on paper, but it doesn't give any indication who it's on behalf of until the very end, and then it makes me wonder "really? Tesco were around in the 1980s?". I suppose they were, but I don't have any rose tinted thoughts associated with them. Also, the aging makeup is crap. Someone seems to have thought they were on the set of an X-Men movie when it came to the mother's grey streaked hair. I don't know if you've seen Playstation's nostalgia fest advert, but it covers similar territory much better.

Meanwhile, I found the M&S one really kind of dull. I can't recall their previous Christmas efforts apart from the "not just any ______... an M&S ______", but their autumn clothing ones are usually a lot more punchy and make it clear throughout who the advert's for. I also noticed they put up a "making of" video, which is just self indulgent and probably longer than the actual ad.
 
headvoid said:
I like the fact they haven't given Heston Bloominnickers or some other idiot some money, but frankly you can be a bit more exciting than this...

[youtube]KfxpTEY7UuQ[/youtube]

more to follow
Click to expand...
Wow, that's really bad. That's like Pillow Pet or Earwax Vacuum or 1-800-VICTIM2 bad.
 
And at last, the Sainsburys one.

This is brave, I can't actually be my normal acerbic self about it really. To base a Christmas campaign purely on amateur footage is almost foolhardy. The cynic in me can spot a few particularly good camera work (soft focus) which has been spliced in. The end story was obviously in the bag at some point. Once you have that (and someone happy to use it on the telly) then you have a winner.

So - staged a little? Maybe. Ultimately it is based on truth. and knocks the instagram wank fest from Tesco out of the water. It also IMO, shows John Lewis up for all it's schmalzy crapness.

The secret? They gave the reins to Kevin Macdonald (Touching the Void) so Bravo AMV BBDO. I suspect if you are not in the UK you might not get all the references and also this campaign has left others a little cold in our office (a bit so what?) but I like it and cannot rip it to bits.

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and where did they get the idea from originally? The multi award winning Aldi campaign continues in the same vein as it has for the last few years.

However, I think this is a little flat. The funny ones are fake and the end Santa made me puke. The kids and the parrot were nice (maybe)

The original campaign was brilliant in that they linked big brands to the Aldi "own" brands with "I like this (big brand), I like this too(own brand)". They try to replicate this in the Christmas ad, but it asks you to remember the old campaign. Basically Advertising agencies forget that most people don't give a shit. The biggest enemy of our wondrous work is apathy. If you forget that you are basically forgettable you can fall foul.

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Ok, TK Maxx - you may remember their horrific hipster circle jerk from last year. Remembering that this is a retailer that sells out of line branded stuff and general tat - but are very successful due to people wanting big brands and general tat. Almost always they don't care the big brand stuff are the products that no one wanted to pay full price for!

Last years circle jerk: - basically a bunch of non existent hipsters who turn up in Vintage BMW's and Camper Vans before breaking out in song with an acoustic guitar. That happens to me all the time! Oh Boy, my family are JUST LIKE THAT!
[youtube]Fi1Z6UToV5U[/youtube]
This years horror - lets create that moment when people have to do a fake face when they get an inappropriate present! That awkwardness at THE MOMENT. Oh boy, what an idea! Let's get actors with beautiful faces to do a straight to camera thing HOW POWERFUL. At least they haven't got a ginger bearded bloke running round with a high end DSLR camera taking pictures of hipsters, so there is that.
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Boots - on a good roll recently and I don't hate this advert which is saying something for me.

I like the use of Bronski Beat, and they have delivered THE MOMENT in a much better way. It still looks a little like a Hugh Grant film, but hey stop being grumpy, it's Christmas.

They also tell a story which is kind of essential for an advert.

[youtube]51Yfr8ZKFXE[/youtube]
 
Debenhams - again producing some decent adverts recently and getting the balance on product about right.

I like the graphic move to "Design" which shows product as well as talking about all the Designers they work with (that's their thing, and it works for them)

The pacing is odd and the storytelling is a little broken up. It's difficult to get right but I couldn't be bothered to work out what the story is (something about a key?) so bit of a fail. However it is a nice looking ad and would appeal to it's audience I am sure.
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ON a separate note - did you see this busker completely caught out by Mr Somerville of Bronski Beat himself?

great moment.
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I'll watch the rest later, but the Sainsbury one is pretty good. I think I saw it on tv but thought it was one of those Channel 4 "KIDS IN CARE" shows and didn't watch it all. They should have spliced in the Nintendo 64 kid to see if anyone noticed.
 
Yeah I liked the Aldi ads (well, didn't hate them) when it seemed like real people saying real things. But I guess when something's susccessful there's a tempation to stage it to make it more exciting and bring in celebrities and actors as Santa and funky robots.

LOL the TK Maxx ad.

There seems to be a lack of "stupid MEN!" adverts this year. Did they go out of fashion?
 
Yes, "useless dad" was on the trend documents last year.

This year the trend documents are full of "Arts and crafts, mend and make do" - (I will show you a Matalan advert soon that basically is that)

Also So - Mo - Lo (Social, Mobile, Local)
Is being now changed to So - Mo - Clo (Social, Mobile, Cloud)

Don't worry everyone, I hate myself and accept that I am wholeheartedly a tosser. If you really want I can give you a summary of all Trend Wank Watch.
 
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